Monday, 6 November 2017

GORGEOUS / PUCK ORDINATIONS

DIARMUID MARTIN HAS ANNOUNCED IN THIS WEEK'S DUBLIN PRO-CATHEDRAL NEWSLETTER THAT HE WILL ORDAIN TWO TRANSITIONAL DEACONS AS PRIESTS OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF DUBLIN.

On several occasions recently clerical and other readers of this Blog had claimed that Deacon Michael Jack "Gorgeous" Byrne would be ordained at the same time - the Feast of the patron saint of Dublin - Laurence O'Toole.But this week's Pro-Cathedral newsletter says two will be ordained - and never mentions Gorgeous!

This means that Gorgeous WILL NOT be ordained next Tuesday - OR - that he will be slipped into the Pro-Cathedral at the last minute and be ordained with the other two?

Knowing the way the RC Church works - ANYTHING could happen???

Catholic apologists - and maybe Diarmuid Martin himself (?) may claim that this is a private internal matter for Dublin and Deacon Byrne himself?

Not true!

Maynooth seminary is in a state of national and international scandal and this scandal is very much in the public arena and therefore a genuine matter of public interest.

It is also of grave concern to the ordinary Catholics of Dublin who financially support DM and his church.

It is also of public interest as the RC church in Ireland benefits from public funds in various ways - including as a collection of charities with tax reliefs.

It is also of interest to other public charities - like THE ST JOSEPH'S YOUNG PRIEST'S SOCIETY who give the RC Church authorities a great deal of publicly collected money towards the training of priests.

This same charity, according to reports, gave Gorgeous himself some annual financial grants - money that was apparently spent on at least one occasion, to finance a trip for drinks at The George gay venue in Dublin.

KING PUCK:

The rumor is that the RC bishop of Kerry - Ray Browne will ordain Deacon Sean "King Puck" Jones to the priesthood next Sunday, November 12th.

The same arguments about Gorgeous apply in the Puck case.

The Irish Catholic bishops have always acted as if it is the duty of theor lay church members to:

PAY UP!

PRAY UP!

SHUT UP!

From that perspective, the possible ordinations of Gorgeous and Puck - in the minds of Diarmuid Martin and Ray Brown are NOT ANYONE'S BUSINESS!

That is not the case anymore in a very changed Ireland in which the people are no longer episcopal serfs.

They must be held publicly accountable for all their actions - and they will be!

The RC Church in Ireland is on a fast downward spiral.

Much of this is down to episcopal and clerical arrogance.Much of it is down to other establishments co-operating with the RC establishment.Much of it is down to church members failing to challenge all the abuse and wrongdoing.It's time all this stuff was out in the open - instead of being hidden in episcopal archives, in papal nunciatures and of documents being sent to Rome in diplomatic pouches so that they will not be capable of being made public under a civil court discovery order. At long last the Irish People and the people of other nations are screaming:STOP!

Nice to hear some good news after yesterday's miserable blog, so thank you for that.But surely the title of your blog today should be the "Bill/James Ordinations"Or are we only dwelling on the negative news?

What is Deacon Byrne's current status? Is he still a candidate for the Archdiocese? Is he still studying in Rome? Maybe he's learned something from his alleged indiscretions. I vote to give this young seminarian the benefit of the doubt. If he is Ordained and then washes out, so be it. Better to give him a chance than to deny him Ordination. With the right first pastor, he could be transformed into a holy and pious priest. Let's not forget, he is a victim of the poor formation at Maynooth. I believe in a God of second chances. He may have learned a great deal from Rorey and Derwin's proclivities. After all, from the mistakes of others, the wise person learns to correct his own. "Blessed are those who show mercy..."

Yes take thechance and ordain them. Let them be like Fr. Damien Lynch telling divorcees they are not welcome in Church or like Fr. Anthony Buckley telling young people they will go to hell for kissing each other.

Puck and Gorgeous have a history according to all that has been reported on here. Whatever happens I wish them well. Our personal history good or bad can be used for good depending on God's grace and our current ongoing disposition. The whole secrecy thing is a worry and in some way the lads are labeled for the long term future whatever life course they follow. They may be authors of their own fate but in some way the church supported them which leads to a rather challenging situation going forward.

Pat, I am mystified at your obsessive onslaught on the deacon(s) of whom you disapprove. Can you not for a moment accept that God's grace may indeed inspire these men, that God may perhaps work through them in a positive way? Remember, your life wasn't exactly a paragon of virtue - indeed you struggled greatly - so, have some understanding and mercy. While we must alwsys condemn abusive and reckless behaviour, we should also be understanding towards those men who may have personal issues. Recall the theological adage: "Grace builds on nature". And recall too the mind and heart of Jesus, who, while totally condemning the sin, offered the sinner new hope and bew beginnings. The memory of Jesus is only sacred and subversive when we imitate him alone in all things.

Pat, take the splinters out of your own eye first...and there are many. I know there are challenges but I don't obsess myself all day, every day, trawling through the failings of others.That's a recipe for Crohn's disease with all the anxieties such a preiccupation would bring! Surely you must have more to be doing than sitting at gadgets all day disseminating information with very skewed agendas. I think you are very unfair and unjust. We have heard so iften the repeated issues you present. It becomes tiresome. Now, having presided at a funeral, I have to visit two schools!!!Pastoral work calls on me.. .

I am a priest who is currently not functioning as such. I am confused about my vocation. I entered seminary with the purest of intentions. I had liaisons in the seminary with fellow seminarians and a priest and continued my behaviour after ordination. I am now at a crossroads and am unsure as to where to go. I really wish my seminary experience had been different as I don't know if I experienced true formation or just drifted through. I would have preferred to have been more challenged to live an authentic spiritual life. Instead I left with a sex addiction and a weak faith and prayer life. In ways I feel I was malformed rather than formed. I, myself was not blameless. But I was very young and immature. My future is hard to imagine. I am neither depressed or anxious. I'm am undergoing a time of discernment. In fact, for the first time in my life I am finding out who I really am. Pat is challenging the whole seminary aspect in Ireland. The issues he raises must be addressed. Otherwise there will be many others like me. I found and find my bishop impossible to deal with. Fortunately I have a good religious spiritual director.

It is good that you, poster 10.16, have a reliable spiritual director whom you can trust. That is important and will help you discern your way. Take your time and don't make any rash decisions.. But above all, be very faithful to daily prayer and if possible inspirational spiritual reading if you can find something interesting. May God forgive those who failed you in any way. One day, you, yourself will be instrumental in guiding others.

Hello, poster at 10.16... When there were some bad or immature experiences in our lives, the most important lesson we should learn, on later calm reflection, is that we shouldn't repeat them! That is a big step forward for the future. We now have a clearer view of things from a totally different vantage point. Gaining in maturity is happening but it can be almost imperceptible... Allow that process to unfold for yourself and be very faithful to daily prayer.. You are on a wonderful journey...remove the stone from your shoe and walk forward with a new ease. Pray to Our Lady of Cana.. Cecily.

@10:16There's a lot to be hopeful about in your comment - reflective self-awareness, openness, honesty, perception.

One thing that strikes me is you mention 'authentic spiritual life' as if it were opposed to sexuality. Sexuality and spirituality are not diametrically opposed phenomena. They belong together. Integration is the preferred healthy state of co-existence. It's not a case of the more spiritual we want to be the less sexual we should try to be. And vice versa.

I wish you well on your journey. You have a lot to be thankful for and, I venture to hope, a lot to look forward too.

10.16 Once again I wish you well and pray for your wellbeing. The RC Church does itself no favours and struggles reconciling theory and practice. Perhaps you would fair better speaking to Pat or another Christian denomination.

To poster 10.16. You have had the prayers and good wishes of some wonderful people today and I add my own to that.I would re-iterate the advice at poster 11.30.(--and the wise thoughts of Cecily, the mystic)

10.16. Thank you for such honesty. It's the kind of honesty that makes all of us better human beings. To accept the truth of who we really are is a life's journey. We discover realms of truth as we reflect on our lives especially if we've been through trauma, challenges, difficulties and personal issues. Self awareness is a great gift, not given to many but when we engage with it, life has a way of blessing us unexpectedly. I have discovered that working through our human struggles - which we all have - deepens our spiritual realities. The psychotherapy I availed of enhanced and coalesced with a deeper spiritual awakening. Read Fr. Daniel O Leary, John O Donoghue, Richard Rohr, Sr. Joyce Rupp, the gospels of course, Sr. Joan Chichester - all wonderfully enlightening. They put words on the struggles. Every good wish and prayer.

I would say that I entered Farnborough Abbey with the purest of intentions. As I mention in my blog, David Brogan (Abbot Cuthbert) mercilessly ridiculed my piety while at the same time assassinating the characters of community members and filling my head with a breadth of detail about the gay scene. I had had gay thoughts and inclinations before but being traditionally raised I was resolved to battle against them. My shield was my piety and my strength should have included a novice master, prior and confessor I could have approached. The novice master and brogan had a hand bags at dawn, scratch your eyes out, humorous bitchy relationship right from the start and I was not convinced I could speak with the prior in confidence. No guidance was offered about a confessor and I hadn't sought one before I became enamoured of brogan and he began to what I thought was liberating me. I also under his influence took on his liberal Catholicism (Yes, he was liberal!) and began to see the general confession at the start of mass as sufficient. (I never went to confession from entering the abbey until the scandal broke.) I started receiving communion in the hands. Dom Andrew, who I had become friends of sorts (bit in awe and frightened of him) during my month prior to joining, took me aside and asked if anyone had influenced my change of practice as I had previously been of the opinion that communion in the hands was not fitting, but by that stage it was too late. Brogan was my hero and it was only a matter of time before physical activity would happen. Again, reference my blog for details dear reader (I'm sure you've seen it MC.)

So, I believe Fr. 10:16 when he says he entered with pure intention and I wonder if his "grooming" was in anyway similar to that which I have recounted?

Of course, I left, but if I had met with enough assurances that "well, celibacy is the ideal, but we're only human...etc...etc.. I might have stayed.

Today I'm happy to be liberal, ecumenical and interspiritual, a "New" monastic, but that does not excuse what happened. It would be a great comfort if the church would take some responsibility for it and strip Brogan of his extraordinary abbatial status even if they can't kick him out of Farnborough, but hey ho.

Easy on Magna!Taking his comments in their entirety, and context, I prefer to ascribe naivity to him, and that he could well have been taken advantage of to inveigle, if not initiate him into sexual activity. For one inexperienced, as I assume he was, first sexual experiences can be intoxicatingly addictive.And if "they're all at it" his inexperience and naivity could well have militated against his ability to pursue behaviour more in keeping with expectations. I 'm making no definite assertion here, just some possibilities. Having said that, I wish him well for I see his current dilemma as a mirror to those I had in 3rd Divinity in 1967, eventually resolved by quitting clerical life. I've no regrets. MMM

I’m anything but immature.Nothing silly about my comment.Being a priest especially a Pp can cover all your costs of leading a promiscuous lifestyle?Promiscuous seminarians don’t go away you know...they will still be promiscuous after ordination

That was probably Mgr Ambrose Macauley and no doubt Big Shooey would have been “all over” such an event. Was a while ago though - before Shooey’s most recent problems. Your dentist should get some new magazines.

"He ordained a lot of Clogher’s greatest". Lol, such as Cody Cleary, Paddy McPhillips, Martin Grainger, Michael Hand, Kieran Farmer, Ciaran Murphy, Jack McCabe, who are among the many Joe ordainaed and who quickly packed in the priesthood, or in Jack McCabe's case when he was sent to prison.

Fr McCabe had been given a glowing reference by Joe Duffy when he applied for a job in an integrated school, despite Fr McCabe's history of abuse when he was a teacher at St Michael's College, Enniskillen.

A seminarian in Maynooth sexually assaulted another seminarian and Dermot farrell told the assaulter he'd not be ordained ever when he was being thrown out. He is now an religious order priest - having invited many of Maynooth's bitch brigade to the ordaination, along with the then High Queen xxxxx xxxxx this definitely need an examination.

Not much to tell except the story of a junior seminarian struggling in Maynooth. He confided in a seminarian in the year ahead. The senior lad dropped the hand and made a move. He was brought to an abrupt stop.

The junior then reported the matter to Dermot. Dermot acted appropriately the drew the boot on the senior. However the bullying the junior guy got was horrible. He got depressed and Fr. Donal o'neill drove him to a mental health facility with a letter of referral from the vocational growth councillor- referral for residential care in there.

Fr. Donal told his parents he wsnt allowed visitors. Then Fr. Donal visited him each week for several weeks. On discharge he came back to Maynooth. Not too long after the junior was booted out and the ex-senior was admitted into the dominicians. He was later ordained and many Maynooth queens attended that day.

In my time at Maynooth, a senior seminarian tried, repeatedly and so hard, to get me 'between the sheets' that I ended up booting him in the 'goolies' and warning him that I was capable of worse. (And I was.) He backed off after this.

The said Dominican also left a trail behind him in a boys secondary school in Cork. His sojourn as chaplain in UCC ended abruptly. He is now living in a community attached to a secondary school . He has adopted a rather new identity now. As with all compulsions, he is beginning to pop his head above the parapet: he recently appeared on the Dominican webpage as the defender of the pro-life movement. Episodes in Maynooth, a Cork boys school, UCC and , not to forget his lectures on sexuality to Oxford students....anybody see a pattern here??

Magna, you are definitely not well today. Your grammar, spelling and content - all very telling of your mental state. Sad for us all.....something not right but good luck...... Otherwise today's blog is so gossipy and intended once again to defame and denigrate others. Pat, shame....

+Pat I do respect you and I think you've done some great work over many years for the marginalized and 'Christ's poor' but I think its time to let this one go.

If the deacon is eventually ordained we should all pray for him as we should for all our bishops, priests and religious that they may be faithful instruments of God's grace and lead souls to Heaven.

We should also pray for all our married couples that they may also be faithful to their vows and lead each other to Heaven and any children they may have.

We should also pray for the singles and those discerning their vocations that they may discover their vocation or find peace and fulfillment in the single vocation, and that they may all grow in holiness so as to enter Heaven.

And finally we must pray for all those who suffer from broken dreams whether they be divorce, failed religious vocations, or being widowed (whether these be their own fault or not) that they may receive the grace of healing and grow in holiness to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

No Kieran, I don't think it's time to let it go! I'm not for persecuting someone who's had the odd slip up but it's those who are living a double life while preaching otherwise to the laity, the predatory ones and those in seminary or religious institutions who seem to believe it is their right and duty to denigrate the pious, draw out latent homosexuality or conspire to oust heterosexuals and others who say no or don't fit in with the clique. They ruin people psychologically and sometimes physically too. The effects can last a lifetime and it has to be stopped! The church should address the issue, clean up it's act and if the two seminarian subjects of this blog wish to continue to ordination then I think a joint public statement is in order, with their bishops, expressing contrition and desire for a fresh start and asking for support and prayers.

Their alleged questionable behaviour and a possible allusion to strange goings-on aka poovery leaves a question mark hanging over their ordination, although it seems their lifestyles are what we've come to expect even from the most senior pulpit poovers.

Pat, I sent a message earlier. For your own reasons you chose not to print it. Fine. But, I am shocked at Magna's comments. You enable his verbal, dangerous behaviour to flow freely, shaming and making an utter fool of himself. His drunken behaviour today also demeans you. Stop enabling this man to self destruct by some strange "fix" or "self gratification" given to him through this blog. While I mostly disagree with his opinions and find him very offensive, I am saddened that he has such disrespect for himself so frequently.

Some very funny things on here today. Who the hell still uses the word 'poovery' lol. Maggie's very waspish today.I agree that the deacons the fuss has been about should not permanently have it hang over them.Thank you to Tom for recounting his bad experience at the notorious Farnborough Abbey. The simple fact is the church keeps and promotes some dreadful people - who behave and treat others in a way far worse than normal human frailty.

Yes. And if the reference were bad then the seminarian explains it as... of course it is, my bad experience there helped me recognise that i'm not called to secular clerical life, rather i think I'm called to religious life...

I do not know. However I would suspect it would have been; they would want to know why someone had left formation previously, did the person leave freely, were there any issues if they were dismissed. Given the current situation of the Irish church I imagine it would have been followed.

Thats easy to cover. Few men are kicked out absolutely. What happens is after a few years out you arrive to the bishops office. Tell him the formators were 100% right and that youve developed during the time out. The formators theteby did you a favour and you throw yourself at the bishops mercy. Now the bishop and formator appear to have all the power and the returnimg seminarian has it straight in his head; ignore the formators but say yes, thank you, of course i will, thank you for your insight... can i promise obedience.

To 21.47 The point clearly said 'I think I know' not 'I know'. Please be more intelligent withyour replies.

Anybody in Maaynooth about 13 years ago knows who is being referred to throughout this blog today. It is a shame the same religious priest likes to court the media today, ad if he thinks he is forgotten about. History will out.

Thanks 11:26 I had emailed Abbot Primate but not Abbot Atkinson, who I read online has been very unwell. I have now copied him into my previous correspondence. See: https://www.facebook.com/amorveritatis/posts/1345317362227410

This is a public facebook post so should be readable even if you're not on fb.